MOVING
LIFE
FORWARD
At the family law firm of Smith & Scatizzi, LLP, the power of forwardthinking women coupled with big firm experience helps families to successfully navigate their way through challenging times. by Jennifer Hadley
“O
ur approach isn’t clinical, it’s human,” says Rachel Scatizzi, partner at Smith & Scatizzi, LLP. “Our entire team of five women has been touched by family law in some way, so our personal experiences supplement our legal training to give our clients the most well-rounded and thoughtful approach to helping them through the pain of some of their darkest times. We know how difficult this is for our clients and that understanding forms the foundation of our approach to the practice of family law,” she adds. Partner Marnie Smith adds, “Family law comprises 100% of our practice. We offer a full range of legal services within that niche, including divorce and legal separation, child custody and visitation, child support, spousal support, complex asset division, domestic violence restraining orders, paternity, negotiation and review of marital settlement agreements, and pre-marital, post-marital and cohabitation agreements.” Smith, who is also a certified mediator through the National Conflict Resolution Center, continues, “In addition, our family law practice also extends into guardianship, adoption and assisted reproductive technology (ART) fields that most general family law practitioners shy away from. Over the past five years, Rachel has traveled the country receiving training on adoption, surrogacy contracts, and sperm/egg donation agreements. ART is a cutting edge arena, with new law emerging seemingly every month. We are proud to be one of the first family law firms in San Diego to offer this expertise.”
PERSONAL FORWARD MOMENTUM What’s perhaps most unique about Smith & Scatizzi is that neither partner set out to become family law attorneys. Raised along with her twin sister by a single father for several years, 16
Attorney Journal San Diego | Volume 138, 2015
Smith recalls watching The Paper Chase as a young girl. “Professor Kingsfield’s line about students entering law school with a skull full of mush and leaving thinking like a lawyer was compelling to me. I decided to become a lawyer when I was 12, and it stuck.” Scatizzi says, “As a journalism major at the University of Missouri, I had to take a course on communications law. Most of my classmates literally slept through it but I found it fascinating. Family law is a far cry from the First Amendment law work I set out to do, but I wouldn’t have traded the path I took to get here for anything.” That path is remarkably similar to Smith’s, which was the basis for the friendship that eventually emerged between the women as the result of working together as civil litigators. Indeed, both Smith and Scatizzi spent many years in a vastly different practice area. In fact, Smith, formally a partner at Seltzer Caplan McMahon Vitek (SCMV), was assigned as Scatizzi’s supervisor when Scatizzi came to the firm as an associate in 2007. “The mentoring and experience we received at SCMV was invaluable. We both trained under one of San Diego’s most legendary practitioners in a large local practice,” Smith says. Though both enjoyed their work as civil litigators, each had their own experiences with family law, which made them begin to consider the possibility that transitioning to the field would not only be satisfying for the attorneys, but would bring the San Diego legal community a new type of family law attorney. “We came from a big firm that handled complex, multifaceted litigation. So we have a wealth of knowledge and skill in areas such as the Evidence Code, discovery, the Code of Civil Procedure, and we think like civil litigators,” Scatizzi says. “When it comes to dividing assets and money between parties, family law is not all that different from litigating a business dispute.”